Posts Tagged ‘explosion’

Today’s strip makes me laugh. If I’m a dork for admitting that, then crown me King Dork of The Land of Dork.

I’ve always been a fan of Tex Avery-style slapstick violence. I get a good chuckle out of the idea putting someone in a situation they are completely oblivious to, and nonsensical violence is their comeuppance.

Regardless, Al Pacino’s new flick Simone left the door wide open to a strip like this one. At least in my brain — where “one + B = elephant.”

I don’t know if any of you have seen the trailers or commercials for Simone, but basically, Pacino creates a computer-generated movie star when his flesh and blood lead walks out of the picture he’s directing. Of course, Simone goes on to super-stardom and is internationally loved. Pacino is then left to deal with the repercussions of his lie which that grown beyond his control.

This movie doesn’t just wear its intentions on it’s sleeve, it shoves them in your fucking face. “ARE YOU LEARNING ANYTHING FROM THIS EXPERIENCE?! DO YOU HEED OUR WARNING?!” It should have the words “A MORAL DRAMA” printed out in big, bold letters at the base of the poster.

Maybe I’m jumping the gun. After all, I haven’t actually seen the film. But once my B.S. alarm sounds, it’s a loud li’l bugger and hard to ignore. I’d rather a film sneak in the back door with it’s message rather than beat me over the head with it. As pretentious as it was American Beauty did a good job of this.

So, what about today’s comic, eh?! Betcha’ didn’t see that one coming! Will Jimmy the Theater Monkey survive, or did his curiosity finally get the better of him? And what does this turn of events mean for that giant stockpile of disbelief seen last week? Only time will tell!

Actually, time will tell rather swiftly as I plan on wrapping up this storyline on Friday.

I gotta say it’s been a blast (“Blast!” HA!) working on this storyline. I’m having a lot of fun working out the next twist. I’m REALLY happy with the way the coloring turned out for today’s strip. I hope you all like it.

I wish I had something more to say, but since I kinda already covered my opinions about Shrek on Monday, I’m kind of standing here with nothing to gripe about. How about we just call it a day and I’ll come back later with insights of a different nature?

…about belly-button lint, perhaps?

In the meantime, if you want to kill a little time in the forums, I certainly wouldn’t hold it against you!

Well, this is it. The ending of our little two week journey. I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but I’m very pleased with the way this storyline turned out – especially the coloring of the last two strips. I put in a lot of effort to tell a different kind of story. I just hope that you liked it.

If you’d like to leave any comments about this storyline, you can do so in the forum.

I have no segue here, so what I’m about to say next, I’ll just come out and say.

I have some big news to share with you about the site. Don’t get into a panic just yet. Nothing has been finalized. It’s GOOD news in case you were worried. But what I have to share could change the direction of this comic for the better starting next Monday.

I know that’s a pretty big cliffhanger to toss out there, but I don’t want to jinx it. If you want to find out what the big news is, come back to the site Monday morning and I’ll be ready to share it.

For right now, I want to give a shout out to a slew of new advertisers.

Be sure to check out our newest sponsor, Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. SMBC is a one-panel web comic similar in spirit to Gary Larsen’sThe Far Side. These strip was around back when I started Theater Hopper almost two years ago before dropping out of the scene. Well, now they’re back, so give ’em your love.

Another advertiser we have is Digital Pimp Online. Don’t worry, kiddies. Nothing dirty going on here and it’s totally work-safe! The site is a collection of both print and web comics that you can check out. The art is really sharp and has a decidedly urban feel. One half of the creative team – Joe Dunn – posts to our forums. So if you like his work, you can always leave him a message and tell him so!

Lastly, Maveric PC is back with us and they’re selling some hot, new custom PC rigs that you have to see to believe. These guys do great work. Quality service and affordable price tags. If you’re in the market for a new gaming PC, give these guys a minute of your time.

In more pedestrian news, Cami and I went to see Shrek 2 last night. It was pretty good, but not as good as critics were making it out to be. I really didn’t think it was any better or any worse than the original. I laughed out loud a couple of times, but never started laughing so hard I would squirt milk from my nose.

The one thing the critics DID get right is how Antonio Banderas COMPLETELY steals this movie from the lead actors. His turn as Puss in Boots has “hilarious” stamped all over it in big, red letters. If they did a movie featuring the adventures of this lone character, I would see it.

I guess Dreamworks is already putting together Shrek 3, so let’s hope Puss gets a little more screen time.

That’s about it on my end. Thanks for keeping up with me these last few weeks through this storyline. It’s been a lot of fun.

Today’s buzzComix incentive sketch is kind of a continuation of today’s comic. Click here for a Godfather-esque homage for the 21st century…

Speaking of The Godfather – Marlon Brando, R.I.P.

If you’ve been keeping up, you know that a complete bastardization of Arthurian legend is being dumped into theaters today. You can thank producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Antoine Fuqua for that. From everything I’ve read, the basically took the story of King Arthur, stripped it of it’s mysticism and tried to root it in historical events. About 1,000 years ago when the Roman empire collapsed, to be exact.

What’s the fun in that? You may as well just call it “Medieval Battle: The Movie”. I’m not interested in seeing King Arthur one iota. I don’t care if you dress Keira Knightley in a couple of leather straps and force her to pretend that’s a reasonable wardrobe choice. I’m not going.

I mentioned Monday that I had a bit of “world-shaking” news. I hope your sitting down when you’re reading this. Things are about to get a little weird.

Okay, so last Saturday, I went to my comic book store to pick up my regular stack of books. I cracked open a copy of Amazing Spider-Man #509 when I stumble onto page 5 and encounter something unusual.

Well, in the background of Amazing Spider-Man #509, page 5… you can see our poster.

FREAKY, HUH?!

I’ve been sitting on this information since Saturday (even though people in the THorum have known about it for a while) because I wanted to wait until after the holiday when readership would be higher.

I’m trying to figure out a way to contact the new ASM artist Mike Deodato, but his official web site is in Portugese! Even after translating it, the e-mail form you can use to contact him doesn’t work!

I have a few alternate leads, but if anyone has suggestions about how I can reach Mr. Deodato, please forward them here. I just want to ask him a few questions and find out where he learned about our poster.

I don’t want to give anyone the impression that I’m unhappy about this. That’s the furthest thing from the truth!

The truth is, I’m excited beyond compare. I can’t believe that something I had a hand in creating managed to find its way – however indirectly – into the pages of one of the best selling comic books of all time!

I have some other news items, but nothing pressing. I know what I’ve put out there is a lot to absorb, so I’ll just leave things at that for now.

Be sure to keep checking the site for updates of this whole saga! I’ll post everything I learn here!

After drawing today’s comic, I realized that I had originally planned on doing a comic about my IMAX experience at Superman Returns. But then, in hindsight, it really would have been more of a rehash of this strip. Basically, the image takes up so much of your field of vision, you can’t hope to see everything at once. During that plane crash where Lois is being tossed around like a rag-doll (seatbelts, people!) you can’t see anything that’s going on. It’s all a blur. So instead of being wowed by the effects, you’re looking for a pause button so your eyes can settle a little bit.

I used to be really annoyed by IMAX films because they are often so short. Like, 40 minutes tops. I think I understand why now. Because anything much longer than that and you risk a neck sprain. At two and a half hours, watching Superman Returns in IMAX was like watching the world’s longest tennis match. I mean, I had an inkling that we might be in for it when the opening title card came up with all that exposition explaining how Superman had been away for five years and you could see everyone in the audience turning their heads from left to right as fast as they could to absorb all the information – laughing nervously all the while. If this movie had subtitles, we would have been screwed.

So, I still have it in my head to check out SR for a second time on a more properly proportioned screen. Only problem is, I don’t know when that will be considering Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest comes out on Friday!

I don’t know if it’s me or if the film’s marketing team is doing a deft job, but Pirates is probably the one movie of the year that I’m most excited for and yet seen little or nothing about it. I’m serious. I just sat down to watch the full trailer maybe a day or two ago. I mean, I get the gist of the plot. Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow owes his soul to a octopus-like sea ghoul Davy Jones played by Bill Nighy. Adventure ensues. I’m there.

But usually this close to a movie’s premire, I’ve soaked myself in the salty brine of advance promotion. I know what all the costumes look like, I’ve read set reports, I’ve seen enough “teaser” clips combined that only 20% of the actual film will be new to me when I see it in the theater… Basically, I ruin things for myself.

But not Pirates. I haven’t seen hide nor hair of it and I think that’s a good thing. I’m really looking forward to Friday. I loved the first film so much. Stands to reason this one should be just as good. Fingers crossed!

For the first time in a few weeks, I don’t have a movie review to share with you guys on a Monday. For some of you this is probably a welcome relief. For others, maybe somewhat jarring.

Movies weren’t in the cards for Cami and I this weekend. Henry came down with his first illness – an eye and ear infection – and we had a couple of rough nights. He’s been to his doctor and he’s on antibiotics now. When I left the house, he was all smiles and bouncing like crazy in his bouncy seat. So, it’s all good.

Of course, even if Henry were well, I doubt we would have made any plans. Evan Almighty was number one at the box office this weekend, but it’s $30 million take in the fact of it’s $250 million budget pretty much categorizes it as a bomb. Surprisingly, 1408 took a huge chunk out of it’s potential take by grabbing $20 million on it’s own. So I guess I was wrong in my assessment last week that the film was on no one’s radar.

On Wednesday, Live Free or Die Hard comes out and that’s what today’s sketch is in honor of. More specifically, me as a generic action hero. I have some strong opinions about LFoDH, but I think I’ll reserve them for Wednesday. As I alluded to last week, I might start upping production of the comic to twice a week with one comic on Wednesday and the other on Friday. I think I’m going to kick that off this week. So, you have that to look forward to!